ASUS TUF FX504GE
This budget gaming laptop is playing the long game.
ASUS’s new 15.6inch gaming laptop is a device the Taiwanese company reckons has been designed to withstand the test of time... or, at the very least, to outlive its contemporaries. While it features a combination of an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, 16GB RAM and entry-level Nvidia gaming graphics card, ASUS reckons the TUF will be sturdier, more reliable and have a longer lifespan than a “standard laptop” thanks to a few new integrated technologies.
In Australia, ASUS has made the FX504 available in two variants. The cheaper of the two is the $1,499 FX504GD, which offers an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card, 128GB solid state drive, 1TB hard disk and a 1080p TN-panel. Then there’s the FX504GE that we tested, with an upgraded GTX 1050 Ti GPU, a bigger SSD, a 1TB hybrid hard disk drive and an IPS display.
Alongside that new six-core CPU — which, in theory, will help spread processing loads and keep the system cooler (and therefore last longer), the TUF FX504 also has a new Anti-Dust Cooling system to actively expel systemdamaging dust before it can collect on fan blades and metal grills. Two capture tubes in the intake have dust particles redirected into them by the centripetal force of the fan blades, and a cutaway on the hinge-edge of the laptop shell creates space for a bigger fan vent and up to 27% greater thermal dispersion over a conventional laptop (the peak CPU temperature we recorded was a better-thanaverage 82ºC).
The TUF FX504’s scissorswitched chiclet keys have a 1.8mm travel distance that hold up adequately for both typing and gaming, and the 15-inch form factor means there’s enough space for a full sized keyboard ( just). It’s even got some neat design perks, like the inlet fan below the WASD key group that keeps your hand well ventilated, and the keyboard is reportedly twice as durable as the industry standard.
The TUF hasn’t scrimped on processing power, with the high-end six-core Intel CPU and 16GB RAM combo scoring well in benchmarks across the board. The 1050 Ti GPU really hits the sweet spot when it comes to budget gaming, with performance sitting almost perfectly between the GTX 1050 and the GTX 1060, giving a playable 30fps plus on modern titles at Ultra/ 1080p settings.
The less-expensive FX504GD model features a 128GB SSD connected via PCIe for 1,500MB/s read speeds, while this FX504GE gets a larger 256GB drive, but sadly loses out on the PCIe — defaulting to a SATA 6Gbps interface for read and write speeds of just 500MB/s. Both units offer an extra 1TB of storage, but while the GD model uses a regular HDD, the GE has a Seagate SSD/HDD hybrid drive that bolts a mini SSD to a traditional hard drive in order to speed up retrieval time and increase longevity by reducing mechanical failure. While we can’t really test durability over our typical four-week review period, this drive only managed 112MB/s in synthetic sequential read tests — slower than some of the regular HDDs we’ve tested, and about 2–5 times below what Seagate promotes as potential speeds.
Battery life was equally underwhelming (even by gaming laptop standards), getting just 1:28 hours for 1080p movie playback.